1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and devices for editing media including still or moving images and, more specifically, to a method and device for editing media including images specifically for communication made through visualphones, videomails, doorphones (intercoms), videoconferences, and videochats, for example.
2. Description of the Background Art
There have been proposed a number of devices for once recording a sequence of events occurring at meetings, seminars, and interviews, communication over phones and videophones, images from televisions and monitor cameras, for later reproduction, by means of digital disks, digital still cameras, video tapes, or semiconductor memories, for example. The devices for such recording and reproduction have become popular as they are more reliable than hand writing, for recording sound and image information.
With broadband communications that is recently widely available, information devices exemplarily including videophones, doorphones, and camera-equipped mobile terminals are now popularly used for person-to-person communication with sound and image information. For example, e-mails conventionally exchanged by text are now being replaced by videomails using sound and moving images. Also, with the widespread use of visualphones, messages left in answering machines so far recorded only by sound are now often accompanying video information. As such, simultaneous use of sound and moving images is now prevalent for the recent form of communication.
Here, when messages and other data, e.g., “message leavings” (i.e., messages left by a caller in response to an automatic answering announcement) in the form of videomail or moving images, are once stored as media, the following steps are usually taken:    (1) Press a recording button provided on a recording device.    (2) Record whatever message.    (3) Lastly, press an end button.
In the following embodiments of the present invention, media denotes any message (or message data) for communication using still and moving images, for example.
If the stored message is sent out to somewhere over a communications line, the following step is often taken:    (4) Determine which portion of the stored message to send, then clip out that portion for sending.
In the case that the stored message is a videomail to a friend, for example, the following step may be taken:    (5) Perform media editing to the message, including wallpapering, cartoon-like-character arranging, image cutting-out, and the like.
Among those steps, in step (4), when determining which portion of the message (that is, determining start and end points for clipping), the user has to playback and listen to the stored message. However, the user may find it difficult or impossible to do such clipping when using a camera-equipped mobile terminal, an answering machine, and the like.
Thus, it may be preferable, at step (3) above, if clipping can be done without the user having to playback the message to determine which portion of the message to send. Such a method is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 6-343146 (1994-343146), where a user input is provided while a message is being recorded, so that signals will be reproduced only for the specific duration of time designated by the input. In this method, however, sound and image information which is only within the time duration thus determined by the user input is played back as a message. Any information extending beyond this time duration will not be played back at all. Further, the only deciding factor for determining which portion is to be clipped out is the timing with which the user input is provided. Accordingly, the user's operation requires caution, and the operation itself may be cumbersome.
Therefore, it would be preferable if, without the need for user input as above, a clipping portion could be automatically detected in moving images under a predetermined condition. Such a method is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 9-294239 (1997-294239), where any portion satisfying a predetermined clipping condition is detected in incoming sound or image information. The predetermined condition exemplarily includes the presence or absence of a sound signal of a predetermined level or higher, the change in image brightness or color distribution, captured image movement, and the like.
Such conventional method, however, causes the following problems if applied to general-type “message leavings” in the form of videomail or moving images showing one person, most of the time, facing to a camera.
First, clipping out the moving images based on the presence or absence of a sound signal is not suited for message leavings using doorphones and visualphones. This is because, in such cases, clipping will not be enabled by messages carrying no sound, so that there is no knowing who may have visited or called. Clipping based on the change in image brightness and captured image movement is not either considered suitable since general message leavings in the form of videomail or moving images often hardly change in image brightness and movement, therefore causing difficulty in clipping.
Moreover, in the above conventional method, every portion satisfying a predetermined condition will be clipped out. If this method is applied to message leavings in the form of videomail or moving images, however, clipping may occur a plurality of times, resulting in one message being split into several pieces. Specifically, if the presence or absence of a sound signal is utilized as the predetermined condition, any moments of silence during message recording will split the resultant message into pieces. This is not desirable for message leavings, each of which is preferably comprised of a single piece. Moreover, even if such split pieces are somehow put together for reproduction, the resultant message will still contain awkward pauses.
As in the above step (5) decorating and editing videomails for display, for example, often requires cumbersome operation and therefore is not common yet. Such decoration/edition is, if at all, performed for still images, e.g., by decorating still images with wallpapers (as in the customizable photo sticker machines commonly seen in video game parlors or the like, for example), or attaching a still-image character decoration to text mails. Further, as for mobile phone terminals available in the market, the operation is desirably done only by a thumb. Thus, such decorating and editing will become more cumbersome. The issue here is, for arranging necessary information so as to be displayable on such small display screens of mobile phone terminals, media editing becomes essential. However, no media editing method has been available that can be suitably used for mobile terminals.